US shale oil peak in 2015
The recent EIA drilling productivity reports show a peaking of shale oil production in the main production regions. https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/drilling/
Fig 1: Bakken production change from old/new wells
The 1st panel shows that the number of drilling rigs has dropped sharply but the initial well production per rig has increased from 450 b/d to 750 b/d. The 2nd panel depicts the monthly production decline in old wells, which has stabilized at around 60 kb/d. This is the volume needed to keep production flat but the 3rd panel shows that new wells offset only about half of the decline. That is why in panel 4 overall production declines.
Fig 2: History of production change
We see that in 2015 production from new wells declined abruptly. The intersection point with old wells corresponds to the peak in production. The old wells decline has moderated suggesting that more and more old wells have entered their phase of final, flat production at very low levels.
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